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The Ledgers of Baldr: 4E408-4E429
Actions Lost due to shaky numbering of turns. Results: The Ashelani Dominion: 17, 11, 8, 13 Sacrifice of native Mu’lakkans to the Brightprince is a necessity, the Blightmother has said—the seafaring nation offers the only consistent source of humans since the Reich dissolved and the northern tribes of Ardunne became less and less populated. Len-Torol is left bracing for a Mu’lakkan political backlash that never actually appears—if the country’s leaders know anything about what’s going on with the Hunger cults, they keep it under their hat for fear of somehow angering the combined might of the Pan-Ardunne Defensive Organization. Thousands of Mu’lakkans board nautilisks to the Ashelani Dominion, where, upon arrival, they are stripped of their possessions, beaten, and thrown to the unlivable wilderness (+2 culture). The Ashelani bombhoppers are still being modified to transport hunger spores upon their detonation—an ordeal kept secret from the rest of PADO, who likely would not approve (1 more success needed). Stavengar: 17, 2, 6, 10 Despite the fact that Ilion is still a collection of scaffolding and half-assembled roadside inns, dwarfs have already been tacking “of Ilion” onto their last names like no tomorrow. Dionarchus’s literary opus, “The Concordiat,” is perhaps the first popular work of satire within your nation—previously, dwarfs had dismissed satire as a Mu’lakkan literary technique that was not worth pursuing. The book tears holes in the state-sponsored leyline research program, which, by all rights, should not have worked at all. The event is compared to the infamous Ignati research into meditation as a means of stopping the Hunger’s growth (+1 culture). The post-Age of Immortality heyday has made breeding animals a hassle—most livestock died off pretty much instantly. Gathering leather therefore, is an ambitious project that doesn’t come to fruition. In addition, the request for builders to add even more on to the ambitious Ilion project is not well-received. The political and nationalistic significance of such a project has led to unrealistic deadlines being pushed back time and time again, and building walls around the city is deemed pointless by the dwarfen foremen council. The city is plenty safe from attack as it is—as no ships can actually pull into port there without risk of being sucked into the two mile-long waterfall that pours down into the beginning of the fissure—the entire bay is known as the “Strait of Certain Death” among dwarf seamen. Kaz’ur: 7, 21, 17, 17 Thaamira’s reading of an old Reich novella in her temporary abode is interrupted one night. There are the heavy footfalls of an Ashik downstairs. She hurries downstairs, prepared to confront the intruder. A man in a green hooded cloak—his features obscured, holds the Sword of the Father in his two hands delicately, having lifted it off its pedestal. The runes on the blade shine with an unnatural light, the same light that she had witnessed. Simultaneously angered and transfixed, as well as somewhat afraid, she asks: “Who are you?” “My name is unimportant,” he replies. “I apologize for this in advance, by the way.” With that, he walks past her, carrying the sword, and exits through the front door, wiping his feet on the mat on the way out. All this she remembers the next day. Why didn’t she stop him, she wonders confoundedly, kicking herself over the loss of her family’s priceless heirloom. It was if the thought had never occurred to her that entire evening. How could she ever face her brother again after this? The Ashik who has forgotten his own name, cradling the Sword of the Father in his hands, books passage on a trade ship to Manuk, bound for the place in the desert that Pattern had specified (1 more success). The academy finally makes significant ground and manages a steady pull of students. The rival Emperor Eckard Military Academy, over the next hundred years of its existence, will slowly and inexplicably evolve into a top-notch dental school (+2 to military research, -180 wealth). The Mu’lakka Lands: 10, 1, 10, 2 The expansion falls through (-10 wealth). After the good islands have all been colonized, all that’s really left is the weird one in the southwestern sea, rumored to be a haunting ground for spirits, and attracts no tourists. Meanwhile, on Big Island, the call for war has been sounded once again. Tourists who arrive on the island are imprisoned and sacrificed to the backward islanders’ vengeful deity of thunder and war. Mu’lakkan relief forces who arrive on the island are met with organized resistance. Big Island is now a sovereign nation with a military score of +8 and a naval score of +9, respectively. They also hate you (have fun with that). Archiving goes poorly, and Tarrit, still fascinated by electricity, puts his hand on the metal rail of his ship once again just as lightning strikes the metal bowsprit of the airship a second time inexplicably, and is electrocuted to death in seconds. Knowledge of thunder, or “long sky fire” will continue to elusively dance around your dumb and superstitious people. Derult: 18, 2, 20, 16 Songs in Derult were never about love. Love, aside from friendly rapport, is an emotion that even rusted Derultians have trouble understanding or displaying. Instead, songs invariably focus on three things: the rustic harsh beauty of the Derultian landscape, fighting in the army, and of course, the blues. Homecoming in particular tells the story of a rusted up model who returns to the good old homeland after a few decades down south and finds that everyone he once knew in his hometown is dead and gone. As the trains roll out of Central, hundreds of recruits board the armored cars bound south for Legaros, some to avenge Derultian pride, others to see the world outside the vast desert that their civilization has called home for hundreds of years (+3 armies, -30 income). Legaros: 10, 16, 17, 12 In this time of need, and with the Hunger ravaging your lands to the east, many citizens have opted to flee the country rather than stay and fight the rapidly approaching Derultian forces. An army of sufficient size is not raised. From their cells inside the imperial compound, imprisoned military men bring up the fact that the Legaran navy is still there to protect the nation, snickering amongst themselves as they eat their disgusting prison gruel. These respected military strategists are quietly executed. The Legaran navy, as they predicted, is floating in the harbor, being a waste of good timber and just generally doing fuckall. Less patriotic Derultians, many of them ex-pat outlaws, offer to sell the Legaran government blueprints for magnet weaponry (+3 military). The old remnants of the Legaran Church exiled to the eastern islands some hundred or so years ago in the monarchist revolution have made their way onshore again—the imperial government can’t really be bothered to arrest them right now, anyway. As the Hunger tears through city after city, the clergy spread the faith among your populace—telling them to embrace death at the hands of the Hunger rather than at the hands of the invading Derultian armed forces. Cult devotees, many of them of Reich descent, march into the poisonous spore fields en masse to die for the Hunger and be reborn as part of the Hunger—to reap revenge on a sinful world (+2 culture, Hunger has taken away 16 income). Jola has steered his skiff between battered rocks that jut out of the sea here and there—the peaks of massive underwater mountains in the southern part of the world. In some spots, the peaks of these mountains lie visible just a few feet below the surface of the water—Jola could get out of the boat if he wished and stand on them while still keeping his shirt dry. They’re harmless to the skiff and entirely submerged, forests of anemones and colorful coral thriving on their slopes. He has sighted the Big Kahuna once, very briefly, although he was now not quite sure whether or not he had imagined all of that. Oblivious to the political situation that has flared up in his homeland, the lone sailor continues on his obsessive quest (1 more success needed). The Halls of the Five: 19, 9, 5, 15 Gojac is forced to survive for two long weeks on nothing but the strength of his endurance and resourcefulness, which naturally means that he teleports back home from his crash site, grabs up six or seven bottles of hard whisky and one or two sponge cakes, has a bath, then teleports back to the crash site and conjures up some more mind-altering drugs while he’s at it because, hey, teleporting is some hard work. When Kellus arrives a week later Gojac has etched the ground of the “settlement” into a motif of hundreds of intertwining centipedes that goes on for a hundred square miles exactly. “They’re what I see when I close my eyes,” the Creator says (-10 wealth, +8 income). Relocating the Cordish and Mu’lakkans seems to have no real effect on the devoutness of their respective religious tendencies. Shua seems to be shaken up by her father’s newfound omniscience. He has had to give up his very humanity in order to pursue this ultimate power, and is no longer to see what lies ahead in the Narrative—merely keeping up with the flood of information from the present takes all of his concentration. A human mind was not meant to bear such a burden. With Garma’s help, though, Shua is able to compile her father’s barely-coherent ramblings into strings of happenings that seems to be going on all over the world--thousands of different continuing stories and experiences. This has actually proven helpful in seemingly random and tangential ways each day (+1 military, +1 to culture research, +1 to expansion, +1 to magic research). Battle Fall of Haven Derultian forces advance unopposed into Legaros and have quickly taken and occupied the city of Haven. Thousands of refugees are fleeing the country, and GE001 has taken up residence in the historic Legaran military district, whose high walls over 100 years ago kept the remnants of the Tribunal safe during the bloody revolution. The back wall of the city has been demolished by artillery and the rubble is being cleared out so that train tracks can be built into the city to solidify Derultian control. GE001 and his armies are part of an advance force to assess the threat of the country to the south, but upon their arrival he had discovered that this was a nation with no actual military presence. It was more efficient to seize it than to make with diplomatic small talk. The resources of this country could be more efficiently harnessed for the Central Objective through direct conquest then they could be through trade. The titanium general surveys the old stone city on his balcony. His finest models have been assigned to guard the new rail depot in the north end of town. The tracks stopped a hundred miles north, but they could easily be extended, and the rest of the armies could arrive. GE001 has thirty days. He does not feel confident. He knows, with mechanical certainty, that the complete domination of Legaros is assured (1 turn needed). Category:The Ledgers of Baldr